Phil Keoghan Has ‘The Amazing Race’ Down to a Science — Literally

Host Phil Keoghan has The Amazing Race down to a science — literally. Before casting began for Season 38 (which is currently in production; Season 37 premieres Wednesday, March 5 after Survivor), Keoghan spent a week combing through years’ worth of fan comments on social media and filtering that into data. This “massive analysis,” he says, was turned into a comprehensive list of the show’s Top 50 moments, which he shared with the Amazing team.

As his conservationist father taught him, “Science doesn’t lie,” and the data says that the watermelon launch snafu from Season 17 (below) is fans’ favorite moment by far. They also love when contestants are “self-driving” and “when there’s drama at the airport with getting tickets,” Keoghan reveals, adding that “my top subject at school was applied math, so I love statistics.” Gathering this intel was as entertaining for him as it was informative.

He reads off more moments from the Top 50 list: “People talked about some of the disasters that happened with the travel, like there was the car flip in Season 7. They talked about some of the long pit stops where teams were trickling in. There was a 19-hour pit stop in Season 11. They talked about key moments where we had the head-shaving moments, Uchenna and Joyce, and then, of course, Rachel Reilly breaking down not wanting to do it. Another one: the dancing water challenge. They had to participate in that elaborate stage production in Macau, and then dive in for a fish underwater. I went all the way down to 50 of them.”

The spicy Hungarian soup, Keoghan’s dad being a Season 13 greeter, the first all-female team to win (Season 17), and Oswald and Danny going shopping also made the list, as did a scene in Season 6, “when Gus and Hera leave Gorée Island off the coast of Africa, and we slow the whole show down and we take a chance to really take in that moment and the meaning of that moment,” he shares.

Keoghan’s research didn’t stop there. “As far as what they talk about, I also did a breakdown. Twenty-five percent of the things they talk about are competitions, 10 percent are funny moments. Five percent are eating moments, heartfelt moments are also at 10 percent. Traveling mishaps are also at 10 percent. So it’s just to remind ourselves, how do we get more of these? How do we get more funny? How do we get more of the heartfelt moments?”

The main takeaway is that what worked when they launched in 2001 still works now.

“We have a surprise in every episode” in Season 37, Keoghan reveals (it’s also the largest cast ever, with 14 teams, above), “but at the end of the day, [viewers] love to see people that look like themselves struggling and sometimes achieving their goals while they travel around the world.” Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! But a few experimental tweaks here and there are also part of the formula.

Kit Karzen / CBS

The team always asks, “What can we do each season that doesn’t steer away from the beautiful format that exists, but also doesn’t feel like we’re not trying new things?” Keoghan shares. Some experiments don’t work out as they planned, like in Season 36, when “the brother and sister got trapped down the end of the road, they couldn’t turn their car around,” he adds. But the snafus are sometimes goldmines.

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“They say luck is the residue of design. And there, that was something that ended up becoming a highlight of the season that everybody talked about and was a great moment in that episode, but not necessarily something that we planned for,” the host explains. “So you set up things to happen. You have all the ingredients for things to happen, but at the end of the day, you don’t know. Some of the best plans are not fulfilled, and then some things that you just never saw happening happen and you end up with great moments. It’s on us to continue to try new things.”

Season 37 has a mix of classic Amazing Race features and new ones. Game pieces the Fast Forward and U-Turn will be back, and the premiere will introduce the Fork in the Road, which Racers will confront on the first leg in Hong Kong. When teams arrive at the Fork in the Road, they will have to choose which direction and route they want to take to the Pit Stop, creating two parallel races where two teams will be eliminated. “It is pretty self-explanatory,” Keoghan says, “but it does limit who can go in either direction.”

As for the new surprise per episode, Keoghan’s happy to reveal that they did stun some players. “The audience, they let you know pretty quickly whether they like something or don’t like something, but what I will tell you is there’s a couple of stop-down moments during the season where we do get some jaws dropping from the teams,” he teases. “Hopefully, that means the audience will also have some jaws dropping.”

Kit Karzen / CBS

Another new experience this season was screening the premiere at SCAD in Atlanta for a live audience and the cast. “That’s such a valuable way of seeing what the viewers love,” Keoghan shares. “And one of the things that really resonated in that screening was the fans really rooting and getting behind the contestants to get through the challenges.”

He continues: “They identify with them when they struggle, and then they see them achieve the goal and get through to the end. People were literally cheering for some of the teams that struggled and some of the teams that lagged behind, but then made up time. And so it’s a good lesson again in knowing that although we’re not making scandalous TV and we’re not making shocking TV where this person just broke up with that person and yelled at that person and slapped this person and voted this person out and did that, we can still make really entertaining content that makes people laugh and cry and feel good, but without having to resort to exploiting the characters.”

In short, The Amazing Race‘s format is just as amazing as ever, 37 seasons in.

The Amazing Race, Season 37 Premiere, Wednesday, March 5, 9:30/8:30c, CBS